Herb or undershrub, stellate pubescent, scabrous or scabrulous, up to 45 cm tall. Branches purplish. Leaves oblong to lanceolate, sometimes slightly oblique, 2-8 cm long, 1-5 cm broad, rounded, truncate or shallowly cordate at base, acute or obtuse at apex, coarsely and irregularly serrate, stiff stellate pubescent on both sides, more so above, glabrescent, stipules linear, 6-8 mm long, margin ciliate; petiole 1-3.5 cm long, stellate tomentose. Flowers axillary, solitary; pedicel 0.5-3 cm long, jointed near the apex, stellate tomentose; epicalyx segments 10, free, linear, 12-15 mm long, 1-1.5 mm broad, longer than calyx, sparsely stellate pubescent, margin simple hairy. Calyx fused slightly above the middle, c. 1 cm long, stellate pubescent and hispid outside, glabrous within; lobes deltoid. Corolla 2.5- 3.5 cm across, pink to pale yellow; petals 2-2.5 cm long, 1-1.5 cm broad, obliquely obovate, obtuse or truncate, stellate hairy at base. Staminal tube 7-10 mm long, 5-toothed at the top, filaments generally present at the base and near the apex, basal ones c. 1 cm long, upper ones 1-3 mm long. Fruit depressed, globose, angular, + 1 cm across; mericarps 5, indehiscent, glabrous, 6 mm long and broad, tapering below, triangular at the top, each angle provided with a short horn, at the base with 4 linear, wing-like appendages, radially smooth, dorsally longitudinally carinate and reticulately veined. Seed in each mericarp, brown.

Lectotype: Abyssinia, alt. 4000', 24 Aug.1854. Schimper s.n. (K!).

Distribution: Ethiopia and Pakistan.

It is a rare species in Pakistan. It seems to have been collected from those parts of Karachi where it is becoming extinct.